RSS Data Shows Warmest January In Satellite Era

Global atmospheric temperatures last month as measured by satellite instruments and analysed by RSS shows that it was the warmest January since satellite monitoring began – following on from the warmest December. January 2016 was warmest January on record in terms of atmospheric temperatures measured by satellite, according to data released by US firm Remote Sensing Systems (RSS).

Below story originally published on the old site February 5, 2016

Global atmospheric temperatures last month as measured by satellite instruments and analysed by RSS shows that it was the warmest January since satellite monitoring began – following on from the warmest December.

January 2016 was warmest January on record in terms of atmospheric temperatures measured by satellite, according to data released by US firm Remote Sensing Systems (RSS).

The mean global temperature anomaly – or variance to the long term average – for the lower troposphere during January was +0.66oC compared with +0.59oC in January 2010 and +0.55oC in January 1998.

Global atmospheric temperatures last month – like those in 1998 and 2010 – were driven up by an El Niño Pacific Ocean warming event. This pushed up the temperature anomaly in the tropics to +0.84oC last month making January 2016 the second warmest January in the tropics – behind January 1998 which registered an anomaly of +1.1oC

The RSS result for January 2016 agrees with a different analysis of satellite data by the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Both analyses rank the global anomaly in January as warmest in the satellite era and the anomaly in the tropics as being behind 1998. This result in the tropics could indicate that there is less energy in the ocean available to the atmosphere than in 1998 or that temperatures could peak later in the year.